Trading the Pigskin for De-boned Baby Back Rib Steak

With a celebrated Southern-steeped suburban eatery (bubbasqdining.com), a catering operation, and line of signature barbecue sauces in their starting lineup, former Cleveland Brown Al “Bubba” Baker and his wife, Sabrina, are developing a whole new fan base: Northeast Ohio foodies. Still, the athlete-turned-entrepreneur had even bigger ideas, inventing a patented food preparation process that removes bones from baby back ribs to create a tasty, one-of-a-kind, all-natural rib steak. “Our seasoned pork rib delivers all of the flavor without any of the mess,” explains Baker, adding that consumers will get exactly what they pay for. “Our baby back rib steak is all hickory wood-smoked meat, not fifty percent bone like some heat-and-serve barbecue offerings out there now.” This month, the former NFL defensive end launches his full-cooked deboned ribs in five Greater Cleveland Heinen’s Fine Foods locations: Mentor, Brecksville, SOM Center, Rocky River and Bainbridge.

“With more than 20 billion dollars in U.S. rib sales in 2010, the potential market is substantial,” says JumpStart advisor Johnny Hutton, who has been working with the Bakers on the business end of launching their culinary products. “If the Bakers are able to expand this out to more of the roughly 3,000 specialty grocers across the country, it’s not unrealistic to think this could be a 14 million dollar operation just a few years down the line.”

Baker will promote his deboned baby back rib steaks in Heinen’s stores over the next few months.

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JUMPSTART INC
JumpStart Inc. accelerates the successes of entrepreneurs, their companies, and the ecosystems supporting them. Its number one job is investing time and sometimes dollars in diverse, early stage companies that are positioned to excel in high opportunity markets. The organization also supports the growth and strengthening of Northeast Ohio’s innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystem and uses its experience in doing so to help regional leaders across the country to grow more entrepreneurial companies in their own regions. For more information, visit www.jumpstartinc.org and follow @JumpStartInc on Twitter.